diff --git a/sidecar/src/web.rs b/sidecar/src/web.rs
index 5c7d384..825ea4f 100644
--- a/sidecar/src/web.rs
+++ b/sidecar/src/web.rs
@@ -141,6 +141,17 @@ pub async fn serve(addr: &str, state: AppState) -> anyhow::Result<()> {
         // the files on that host changed since the last import", and a cached answer to that is
         // worse than no answer.
         .route("/assets/sources", get(assets_sources))
+        // Stage 2 (phase 3): what the shard could serve, hashed but without the pixels, so the
+        // website can ask only for what changed. Paged.
+        .route("/assets/manifest", get(assets_manifest))
+        // The pixels, for an explicit list of keys. POST rather than GET because the list is the
+        // request -- a few hundred keys do not belong in a query string, and this is the one place
+        // on this link where a read takes a body.
+        .route("/assets/fetch", post(assets_fetch))
+        // Slug -> body id. The one asset-plane call the shard answers ON ITS CORE THREAD, because
+        // it resolves a class name by constructing the creature and reading its body; the sidecar
+        // neither knows nor cares, which is the point of forwarding verbatim.
+        .route("/assets/bodies", post(assets_bodies))
         // The cliloc table (Protocol 8, phase 2): UO's id -> display-string map, read out of the
         // shard's own client and paged. RPC for the same reason as the source gate, and one more:
         // it is five megabytes of somebody else's copyrighted strings, which this process has no
@@ -1445,6 +1456,105 @@ struct ClilocQuery {
     cursor: Option<String>,
 }
 
+/// Stage 2 of the import gate (docs/link/v8.md §6, phase 3): every asset the shard could serve,
+/// with a hash and a size and **no pixels**.
+///
+/// That separation is the whole difference between an Update and a re-download. The website holds
+/// the hashes from last time, diffs this against them and asks `/assets/fetch` only for the keys
+/// that moved — which, on the normal restart-that-changed-nothing, is none of them.
+///
+/// **Paged, and the caller drives the paging**, same envelope as `/cliloc`: echo the previous
+/// reply's `cursor` until one says `more: false`, and read `cut` to learn *why* a page was the
+/// last — only `end` means the manifest is complete. This family pages on the shard's wall clock
+/// rather than on bytes, because its rows are tiny and building them means decoding hundreds of
+/// sprites, so expect several pages of a few hundred rows each.
+///
+/// `?family=` selects which asset family; phase 3 serves `body` and the shard refuses anything
+/// else by name rather than substituting a default.
+async fn assets_manifest(
+    State(st): State<AppState>,
+    Query(q): Query<ManifestQuery>,
+) -> impl IntoResponse {
+    let req_id = st.rpc.next_req_id();
+    let mut cmd = json!({"kind": "assets.manifest", "reqId": req_id});
+
+    if let Some(family) = q.family.as_deref().filter(|s| !s.is_empty()) {
+        cmd["family"] = json!(family);
+    }
+
+    if let Some(cursor) = q.cursor.as_deref().filter(|s| !s.is_empty()) {
+        cmd["cursor"] = json!(cursor);
+    }
+
+    respond_assets(st.rpc.call(&st.shard, cmd, &req_id).await)
+}
+
+#[derive(Deserialize)]
+struct ManifestQuery {
+    family: Option<String>,
+    cursor: Option<String>,
+}
+
+/// The bytes, for keys the caller names: `{"keys":[…],"catalog":<opt>,"cursor":<opt>}`.
+///
+/// Each row carries the sprite as base64 PNG. The shard encodes it, and that is deliberate rather
+/// than incidental: `System.Drawing` is already in its *decode* path (docs/link/v8.md §4.2), so
+/// PNG costs it no new dependency, while asking the website to encode would put an image encoder
+/// in Node and make the manifest's hash cover bytes nobody ever stores.
+///
+/// **`catalog` is the mid-import guard.** A manifest reply carries a `catalog` id derived from the
+/// client files themselves; passing it back here makes the shard refuse (422) if those files moved
+/// in between. Without it an operator who patched their client halfway through an import would get
+/// one asset set stitched out of two, with no error anywhere.
+///
+/// A key the shard cannot serve comes back as a **row** with a `status`, not as a failed request —
+/// a body this client has no art for is the expected answer for two thirds of the player bodies,
+/// and failing the whole page over one would make an import impossible on a stock client.
+async fn assets_fetch(State(st): State<AppState>, Json(body): Json<Value>) -> impl IntoResponse {
+    assets_call(&st, "assets.fetch", body).await
+}
+
+/// Slug → body id: `{"types":["GiantSpider", …]}` (docs/link/v8.md §8, phase 3).
+///
+/// The spawn atlas knows a creature by the class name in `Spawns/*.xml`; the client knows it by a
+/// body id; nothing in the ServUO tree declares the mapping as data. Only code running *inside*
+/// ServUO can answer it — construct the type, read `Body.BodyID`, delete it — which is why this is
+/// a request kind of its own rather than a step inside asset extraction: it runs on the shard's
+/// Core thread, while every decode on this plane runs off it.
+///
+/// **The shard caps the batch and refuses rather than truncates** a longer list, because every
+/// name in it costs a real constructor between two ticks of the world. Chunk the list; a 400 here
+/// names the cap.
+async fn assets_bodies(State(st): State<AppState>, Json(body): Json<Value>) -> impl IntoResponse {
+    assets_call(&st, "assets.bodies", body).await
+}
+
+/// `event_call`'s shape for the asset plane: take the caller's object verbatim, stamp `kind` and
+/// `reqId` on it, and map the reply through `respond_assets` rather than `respond_event`.
+///
+/// The two differ in exactly one way that matters, and it is the reason this is not `event_call`
+/// with a different string: `bridge.busy` is a **425** here, and it is the ordinary answer during
+/// an import rather than a rare collision. The shard serves one asset request at a time on purpose,
+/// so a caller that read busy as an error would abandon a healthy transfer.
+async fn assets_call(st: &AppState, kind: &str, body: Value) -> (StatusCode, Json<Value>) {
+    let mut obj = match body {
+        Value::Object(m) => m,
+        Value::Null => serde_json::Map::new(),
+        _ => {
+            return (
+                StatusCode::BAD_REQUEST,
+                Json(json!({"error": "body must be a JSON object"})),
+            )
+        }
+    };
+
+    let req_id = st.rpc.next_req_id();
+    obj.insert("kind".to_string(), json!(kind));
+    obj.insert("reqId".to_string(), json!(req_id));
+
+    respond_assets(st.rpc.call(&st.shard, Value::Object(obj), &req_id).await)
+}
+
 // ---- websocket ----
 
 async fn ws_upgrade(ws: WebSocketUpgrade, State(state): State<AppState>) -> impl IntoResponse {